(UPDATED*) People in space or science in space?
As much as science writers have enjoyed covering Shuttle launches (you get to witness spectacularly impressive hardware thundering skyward), many of us have long known that putting people in orbit is the least cost-efficient way to do science in space. Almost nothing that astronauts do can’t be done by machines at a fraction of the price. Thus President Obama’s cancellation of NASA’s Constellation program, which was aimed at returning people to the moon and heading for Mars, can be seen as striking a blow for science over spectacle.
But as the New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang tells us today, some of the old timers from NASA’s glory days are calling Obama’s plans “devastating.” They include Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, Gene Cernan, and Gene Kranz. They and 23 other NASA veterans issued a letter on Monday saying it is a great shame for the U.S. to be unable to send people into Earth orbit or, eventually, beyond.
Chang puts the story in the context of a curtain-raiser for Obama’s visit to Cape Canaveral on Thursday where the president will describe his plan for space exploration.
Other takes:
Todd Halvorson at Florida Today has the story and adds that at least one storied astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, has endorsed Obama’s plan.
Louis Page of The Register, in the UK, teases out one element of the president’s plan, which he calls a partial reversal of Obama’s proposed scrapping of NASA’s Orion capsule. As others note farther down in their stories, Orion is to be kept as an emergency rescue vehicle that can be launched to the Space Station unmanned.
At the Orlando Sentinel Mark K. Matthews and Robert Block write that the reversal on Orion was a response to pressure from Congress and space fans.
- Boyce Rensberger
*UPDATES (Charlie Petit) :
We’ll cover more news from the meeeting itself, with Obama in Florida, on Friday. Here are additional warm ups, from AP‘s Seth Borenstein from this week:
- Obama revives capsule from canceled moon program ;
- NASA’s generation gap: Obama space plan angers old Apollo hands, delights the younger set ;
- On home turf of his astronaut critics, Obama to make pitch for changes in direction of NASA ;
